Little Gull 小鷗 Hydrocoloeus minutus
Category I. Accidental.
IDENTIFICATION
25-30 cm. The smallest gull, approximately two-thirds the size of Black-headed Gull; bill rather fine and black. First-winter birds such as this have a distinctive upper wing pattern of dark tertials, median coverts, outer primaries and tail band, contrasting with pale grey mantle and white tail, blackish spot behind eye, pale greyish hind crown and dull pinkish-red legs.
Adult has pale grey upperparts and upper wings (with dark on inner webs visible), and distinctive dark grey underwings (paler on coverts), both surfaces with broad white trailing edge. In breeding plumage has black hood with no eye crescents and a pinkish tinge to the underparts. In winter plumage has a fairly neat black spot behind the eye and greyish hind crown. Legs deep red.
VOCALISATIONS
Sharp and fairly high-pitched down-slurred ‘kyow’ or ‘ki-kyow’
DISTRIBUTION & HABITAT PREFERENCE
Hong Kong records have occurred in the intertidal areas of Deep Bay.
OCCURRENCE
1997: first-winter on 23 February (Leader 1999).
2005: first-winter on 24 March.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING & DIET
No information.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Monotypic. Breeds from the east coast of the Baltic Sea east through western Russia to northern Kazakhstan and southeast Siberia as far as the Sea of Okhotsk, with small scattered breeding populations in eastern North America; winters coastally in Europe and the Mediterranean, Black and Caspian Seas, with north American birds wintering off its east coast.
In China it breeds in small areas of Xinjiang and Nei Mongol and there are scattered non-breeding season records from east and southeast China (Liu and Chen 2020).
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend increasing.
Dove, R. S. and H. J. Goodhart (1955). Field observations from the Colony of Hong Kong. Ibis 97: 311-340.
Herklots, G. A. C. (1953). Hong Kong Birds. South China Morning Post, Hong Kong.
Liu, Y. and Y. H. Chen (eds) (2020). The CNG Field Guide to the Birds of China (in Chinese). Hunan Science and Technology Publication House, Changsha.
Taylor, B. and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Watercock (Gallicrex cinerea), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.waterc1.01
Vaughan, R. E. and K. H. Jones (1913). The birds of Hong Kong, Macao and the West River or Si Kiang in South-East China, with special reference to their nidification and seasonal movements. Ibis 1913: 17-76, 163-201, 351-384.
